When someone sees upwards of 400 movies a year, it's tough to find many that throw them for a total loop. Jeff Burr's 'Straight Into Darkness' starts out like a straight war flick, almost turns into a horror movie, slowly becomes a moving piece of drama, and spits you out on the other side both impressed with the end product...and more than a little shaken.

If you took a look at filmmaker Jeff Burr's filmography, you'd notice a clear theme: he's directed stuff like Stepfather 2, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, Pumpkinhead 2, Puppet Master 4 AND Puppet Master 5! Clearly Mr. Burr knows how to deliver a product when he's given very little money to work with - because, dig those sequels or not - they've all turned a pretty penny over the years.

So what one takes away from Straight Into Darkness is simply this: Jeff Burr has most likely spent the better part of his 20+ year career making movies for other people...so that one day he'd have the ability to make a movie or two for himself. And if you go into his latest film with visions of Pumpkinheads and Killer Puppets dancing through your head, you're in for a shock.

The good kind.

Because Straight Into Darkness is a damn solid war movie, an anti-violence parable that uses blood, bullets, gore & grimness to make its point loud and clear. It's a movie that clearly has a glowering disdain for our society's preoccupation with wholesale slaughter and mindless warmongering, yet the film doesn't preach or pander or hawk its wares in blatant fashion

Straight Into Darkness opens as two disgraced Americans are being arrested after some particularly nasty war crimes. On their way to a court martial, their Jeep hits a land-mine (sparking off a truly harrowing sequence in which several MPs are blasted to kingdom come) and the pair manage to escape into the dank wasteland of war-torn Europe.

After avoiding a desperate German brigade, Losey (Ryan Francis) and Deming (Scott MacDonald) come across a shellshocked schoolhouse and a collection of feral children. Given that Deming is a horribly violent criminal and Losey is not really all that much of a soldier, the kids and the fugitives quickly find themselves reluctant allies when those pesky Germans show up and start snooping around.

Reminiscient of Keith Gordon's fantastic A Midnight Clear mixed with a healthy dose of Rod Serlingism, Straight Into Darkness is a dark and stark little tale. The wind-blasted Romanian locations offer an unsettling palette, the violence is extreme and unapologetically effective and, despite what was clearly a rather limited budget, the movie offers a memorably mesmerizing visual experience as well. Which just goes to show what you can accomplish when you have more passion and creativity than you do blank checks to throw around.

So if this director has spent 20 years as a low-budget gun-for-hire because he loves making movies, how hopeful do you think he is that 'Straight Into Darkness' represents a big departure? Well, I may be only one guy, but I know my flicks, and I know sincere and heartfelt artistry when I see it. That stuff is slathered all over 'Straight Into Darkness'.

OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 SXSW Film Festival. For more in the 2004 South By Southwest Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Fantasia Festival For more in the 2005 Fantasia Festival series, click here.

User Comments

4/16/12

Cavaletti

Instant classic for me!!!!

6/13/10

The Stick that Slaps

Very good; oddly moving too...

7/27/09

Chaz Stevens

Weird.... in a good way.

7/20/09

hellonastrat

Visually breahtaking & thought provoking.

5/12/09

jef

a movie for a change I kept me waching. until the end

12/06/08

cleetus van damme

boring and almost pointless - we all know war is bad already

5/15/08

doug spicer

it sucks

7/20/07

Terje Larsen

Low budget and unbelievable story and plot.

11/23/06

Wendell O Maness

I love gay and lesbian films, loved this one!

11/04/06

darryl ross

Agreed.The director took too many short-cuts to make his vision celluloid.Almost great.

10/14/06

Carol Preston

Best movie I've seen in YEARS.

9/04/06

Wendell O. Maness

Gay/Lesbian films are very uplifting to me, I enjoyed it greatly

7/15/06

Rome

Great movie, Had a tear in my eye at end

7/06/06

GK

Excellent. A departure from the typical big budget hollywood stuff.

6/17/06

Julie from Dallas

Most Excellent Movie, very touching!

6/13/06

Elizabeth

I don't watch war movies but I thought this movie was excellent.

6/10/06

john

the efilmcritic must have watched another film

2/11/06

Wendell Maness

I like gay movies, thought this was wonderfull

10/30/05

leffi

Historical inaccurate, can someone tell me what kind of tank that was supposed to be

9/05/05

Alfred

kids kill soldiers like this?

6/08/05

movie mikey

ja well no fine.

2/17/05

Rafael Ochoa

very god,

1/27/05

cynthia Maness

Excellent movie best acting I have ever seen

3/26/04

RICO JUAN

AWESOME, INTENSE, AND SCARY...HAVEN'T SEEN A WAR MOVIE LIKE THIS BEFORE